


Shades of Being Human

by savannahrunes



Series: Shades [2]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: (okay so Phil isn't really in it but he is mentioned so shhh), AKA you - Freeform, Agender Character, Agender Dan, Coming Out, Gen, Gender Identity, POV Second Person, from a phandom member's perspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 17:53:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8170606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savannahrunes/pseuds/savannahrunes
Summary: You feel as if you know danisnotonfire and AmazingPhil better than yourself sometimes. You've watched all of their videos, have tweet notifications on for them and various fan accounts. You smile when you talk about them, love them in ways you can't explain.But, as it turns out, there's always more to learn.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote a sequel!! It's different from the other work in this series as it is from a different perspective, and can be read without reading Not So Black And White, but if you like the idea of agender Dan maybe check it out as I explore more of Dan's personal experience in this verse there. Here I am looking at his coming out from the perspective of the fandom, as I wanted to try writing in the second person so I hope it paid off.  
> Please let me know what you think of this I would appreciate it so much

It’s a Tuesday night, 9.p.m, and you’re waiting for one of your favourite youtubers, Dan Howell, to pop up on your computer screen and start his liveshow. You started watching his videos a couple of years ago, and it quickly spiralled into an obsession where you have his tweets on notifications and watch his videos religiously. Along with his flatmate Phil, you’ve never loved two people you’ve never even met so much. 

When Dan’s face appears on the screen, you can’t help but smile a little. He’s wearing a sweatshirt that is black, as always with Dan, but it has a pastel pink design on it. It’s cute, if a little feminine, and he suits it so much. He’s smiling already; he always seems to be smiling these days.

Within the first fifteen minutes, Dan was already ranting about the TV show that he had become obsessed with that week, and his eyes are alight as he speaks. When Dan really cares about something, it’s one of the most captivating things to watch. He can’t seem to stop talking once he’s started, and even when you have no idea what he’s talking about, just seeing him get passionate is mesmerising in itself.

When he’s done rambling, he checks the chat and the premium messages that people send and he responds to. You frantically type something into the chat, but it quickly gets lost in the sea of messages bombarding the screen. He speaks quickly, firing off answers to questions with barely a second thought.

“Misty asks: Isn’t that jumper from the girl’s section of Topshop?” Dan is silent for a second, and you see that there is a split second of something behind his eyes. You’re not sure if it’s fear or panic or surprise or hope or something else entirely. But he’s talking again before you can decide, and you think that perhaps you made that moment up. “Yes, this is from the girl’s section, but guys, I’m just going to break it to you. Clothes have no gender. Anyone can wear anything they want, whether a boy wants to wear a dress or a girl wants to shop in Topman. And I saw this and I liked it so I bought it. I didn’t care that it was from the ‘girl’s’ section, and neither should you. Wear whatever the hell you want to wear guys, because honestly it shouldn’t be a big deal, and I’m sure you’ll look fabulous anyway.”

The chat is going crazy at Dan’s words, and you understand why. Even though he’s always been amazing at giving positive messages to his fans, the fact that those words were his and not thought of specifically for a video made it seem more real.

And you love the positivity and the way that Dan conveys it, and honestly, you’re just happy to see him comfortable in his own skin.

Dan smiles into the camera, and it’s the kind of smile that reaches his eyes, making them go all crinkly and adorable.

Even though he can’t see you, you smile back.

* * *

 

Your phone buzzes, and you open it to see the notification saying ‘AmazingPhil has uploaded a new video’. Since you’re merely sat at home watching TV, you pause your programme to watch Phil’s 6 minute video straight away.

Phil is sitting on his bed, his usual colourful room behind him. It’s a vlog style video, with him just talking about some funny recent events. When it’s over, you click the like button, and then open twitter to see what the rest of the phandom thinks of the new content.

And it’s a shit storm. Your entire timeline is filled with “WHAT THE FUCK OMG” and tweets of that ilk. Confused, you try to work out why people are freaking out. It had seemed like a normal video to you, nothing big got announced. In the end you go to one of your groupchats and ask why everyone is shouting.

It takes a few minutes for a response, but one of your online friends sends a message that says:

“Okay, so basically in the Phil video, he was talking about Dan right? Except when he was talking about Dan, he didn’t use he/him pronouns. Someone noticed that he only used they/them pronouns, and now everyone is wondering if it was deliberate and if Dan really uses they/them pronouns now.”

It takes a few moments for the consequences of that to sink in. You go back to youtube and watch the video all over again, and this time you notice very clearly that Phil does indeed use only they and them pronouns when referring to Dan, although he does only refer to Dan using pronouns three times in the whole video.

What did it mean? Could Dan Howell, one of the most influential youtubers with over 5 million people watching his content, be non-binary? Was he more comfortable with they/them pronouns than he/him? Or did it mean nothing at all?

You decide not to take anything as truth until you hear the words from Dan’s lips because it would be wrong to assume something like someone’s gender. But the mere thought that he may be not completely cisgender is all that is running through your mind.

And you’re certain that Dan and Phil are sitting scrolling through social media and smiling because with just a few words scattered casually into a video, they had changed what everyone thought about Dan, and proved that you can’t assume anything about anyone.

And there’s no doubt that they’re smug as shit about it.

* * *

 

Dan hasn’t uploaded a video in two months, and it’s beginning to get a bit suspicious. The gaming videos haven’t stopped, and you know that Dan has a sporadic uploading schedule anyway. But two months is the longest that Dan has gone without making a danisnotonfire video; even when him and Phil were on tour he still released videos fairly regularly.

It’s the brief absence from youtube that makes you think that something big is coming, that the viewers are on the cusp of finding out something big. It could be something being announced like the book or the tour, but you can’t think what it might be. It could be the confirming phan video that most people are hoping for and speculating about. If something big is truly coming, you can’t help but hope it will be phan confirmed too, although you think back to Phil using they/them pronouns for Dan and how everyone had wondered if it had meant something more. You wonder now whether it actually might.

Then, at 9:47 on a Saturday evening, Dan Howell uploads a video called “Coming Out??”

It’s kinda stupid, because Dan is someone who you’ve never met and who doesn’t even know you exist, but your heart speeds up and you take a sudden breath because he means a lot to you and even without clicking in it you know that it is going to be an emotional video and it’s almost too much to comprehend.

Your thoughts are racing, but you click on the icon almost immediately. Dan is sitting on his bed, looking a little bit nervous and awkward in front of the camera as he fiddles with his hair a bit before starting to speak.

“So I know that most of you have probably already freaked out about the title of this video, and as you can already guess this isn’t going to be a usual danisnotonfire video, and you’re probably all expecting me to confirm that like phan is real or something…” He shifts again, and he’s no longer the confident persona that he puts on for the camera. This is Dan Howell, not danisnotonfire.

“Surprisingly, however, that’s not what this video is about. That would be a whole other video, one which I’m not sure I’m ever going to make…And now I’m rambling a little but it’s just that I know what people are going to be expecting and I’m not going to be giving you guys that unfortunately. But here it is.”

Dan takes a breath, looks into the camera and says, “I’m agender.”

You have to pause the video for a few moments to let what Dan has said sink in. Even then, it doesn’t really. Dan Howell, who has always kept things deliberately ambiguous and not used labels, is agender.

“If you don’t know what agender means, it literally means ‘without gender’. It’s a non-binary gender identity, but I guess to me it means a kinda of…disconnection. I don’t feel particularly connected to gender, so thinking of myself as without gender, or agender, just makes more sense in my head.”

Your phone begins buzzing as you receive messages from some of your friends also freaking out about these new revelations, but you try to ignore them. The things that matters right now are Dan’s words, and you still have 8 minutes left of the video, 8 more minutes of Dan unspooling this story and you want to listen and appreciate what else he has to say.

“I don’t really have like a really long backstory about this where I’ve always felt like this, or that I’ve been keeping it a secret for years. Like honestly, it was a couple of months ago when I was scrolling through tumblr that I kinda had this sort of revelation like ‘oh maybe I might be more comfortable identifying outside of the gender binary of male and female, girl and boy.’ Like, I was sort of aware of other genders, especially as I know that a lot of you guys are non-binary. I’ve had various viewers come up to me and tell me so, or who’ve shyly asked me or Phil or both of us to use they/them pronouns, but even being aware of it I hadn’t stopped to think that maybe it applied to me.”

As Dan continues to speak, confidence builds and builds. He very quickly grows from uncharacteristic awkwardness to his usual, articulate self. There’s the spark in his eyes that he gets when he’s talking about something that he cares about, that he’s passionate about.

“It was kind of random fluke that I clicked on a link I saw on tumblr that led me to read more and more about non-binary gender identities. I know I don’t usually do this, though to be fair I don’t exactly normally do videos like this either, but I’ll leave some links in the description of some of the pages and websites I visited that helped me figure it all out. As I read, particularly about the term agender, I began to realise how it aligned with how I felt, about how I connected with it in a way that I didn’t think was possible. And let me tell you, it was fucking scary. Figuring shit out like gender identity and sexuality is not easy and it makes you examine yourself in so many different ways. For me, it challenged my concepts of gender, and it made me realise that I no longer identified as a boy, but I definitely didn’t identify as a girl either. Instead the term agender described my feelings almost perfectly, and so here we are today.”

He’s all arm gestures accompanied by soft yet confident words. It’s still not got the rapid, rehearsed feel of a normal video, but also not the relaxed, laziness of a liveshow. His monologue is somewhere in the middle; he’s articulate yet informal, as though explaining it all to a friend without the pauses normally present in conversation.

Dan shifts his eyes, and he’s no longer looking at the camera but at something, or someone behind it. You are almost certain that Phil is there, smiling encouragingly at Dan, his eyes full of support and pride. You know that whatever their relationship may be, Phil is always there for Dan, particularly through something like this, and it warms your heart in the same way it always does whenever you think about how close they are.

“I guess the main point for making this video, I mean besides telling you that I’m not really a boy, is because I want to ask all of you to do something for me. It’s not something big, but it will honestly mean the world to me. I’m still good with the name Dan, but I feel slightly uncomfortable with using he/him pronouns to describe myself, so if you could all try your hardest to instead use they/them pronouns when talking about me. It might seem weird at first, I know, and I’m not going to be coming after anyone with pitchforks if they get it wrong, but seeing so much misgendering online always results in a little twist in my gut. It’s kinda the reason I’ve been avoiding social media recently, so if you respect me then I encourage you to at least try. It’s been weird for my family and friends, but they’ve gotten used to it pretty quickly. Phil, being the angel he is, hasn’t got it wrong once.”

They grin at that, no doubt thinking about how lucky they are to have someone in their life like Phil. You think back to the video where Phil used they/them pronouns for Dan so casually, about the way everyone had speculated but had been unsure. You remember deciding not to assume until you heard the words from Dan themselves, and here they were. You’re still slightly shocked that someone so prolific, someone so loved is not only transgender, but non-binary and using they/them pronouns. You know that there will be people out there weeping through this video as they see someone as famous as Dan Howell representing them because even though they’re a minority, they exist and are visible and Dan proves it. You think about how, although you know various non-binary people online and are friends with a couple, you’ve never really come across a character or celebrity that identifies as anything other than male or female. Especially not one that means as much to you as Dan does.

They—it is weird to think of them as a ‘they’ and not as a ‘he’, but you know that it’s important that you do your best to do use the right pronouns even when thinking about them to yourself—they are smiling, and even though you are only seeing them through a screen you can see a sort of glow around them. They look more comfortable in their own skin than they have in a long time.

They look so happy, and it’s honestly just so heart-warming to see how radiant they become as they finally share their true self with the world.

“To be honest, I just really love all you guys, all of my amazing subscribers, and it’s been so hard hiding this from you. You’re all like friends to me, and I wanted to tell you so much. And if you decide to be transphobic or just a general dickhead about this, you can unsubscribe now.

“This is who I am. And I’m not changing for anyone.”

The screen goes blank

You know that twitter and tumblr and the comments section is likely going crazy, but you stay there a couple of moments contemplating what you have just watched. You’re still in a bit of shock; you never expected Dan to come out like this in a million years. You’re in awe, because it is a very brave thing to do, especially as a lot of people may not understand Dan’s gender, and they don’t have a mere handful of people judging him, but millions. But mostly you’re just sharing in their happiness, their euphoria at figuring this all out.

And you feel a little bit closer to your seemingly untouchable idol, because you’re reminded once more just how human they truly are.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](maychang.co.vu) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/alchemyhowell)if you want to come chat about dan&phil or anything really, my askbox/dms are always open


End file.
